Life is not the same for father of murdered Jamaican

HAMILTON, Bermuda (CMC):

The 71-year-old father of Jamaica-born gun victim George Lynch has spoken of his anguish that his son's murder remains unsolved more than seven months after his death.

Lynch, 40, was shot dead on May 5 outside a Hamilton Parish home that was the subject of a trial involving an earlier mob attack there.

Police said the father of three was an innocent victim with no links to the gang underworld plaguing Bermuda.

He was the fourth man shot dead this year, and three more have lost their lives since then.

His father, Leonard Lynch, described him as a bystander who found himself alone and vulnerable when two masked men opened fire.

The killers are still at large, and police admit they have struggled to gain information in the investigation, although they issued a fresh appeal for help this week in solving the crime.

"Life is not the same, it has really upset our whole family and the worst part of the whole thing is his young family. His three young children have been left without a father," said the father from Branton, Ontario, Canada.

Left two daughters

George Lynch, who moved to Bermuda from Canada where he had been living, left behind two daughters, the elder one just five years old. His Bermudian wife, Nekesha, was pregnant with their third daughter when he was murdered. The baby, Itana, was born four months ago.

Lynch's father met her recently when Nekesha visited Canada, and it was a bittersweet moment.

"From a standpoint of getting to know her and see her and to be able to hold her and feel her, that was really great.

"The whole family enjoyed that but not the fact that George is not around to look after the kids," he said.

"His whole intention was to grow these kids up just the way he was grown up and he was planning so he would be able to take care of his family, fight for them and love them, and all of that is down the drain. It's just unbearable."

Visiting a friend

Lynch went to a house on the night of his death to visit his Jamaican friend Philmore Phinn.

Phinn had given evidence two days before in the trial of several men accused of a brutal attack on his brother-in-law Temasgan Furbert at the same premises in February 2009.

At 7:30 p.m. on the day of the murder, a Supreme Court jury found three men guilty of participating in that attack. A judge remanded them.

Three hours later, two masked men arrived on a motorcycle and shot Lynch once in the chest outside Phinn's house.

According to Lynch's father, Phinn and a neighbour became suspicious when the two men rode up and stopped a distance away from the house. They went into their homes to fetch baseball bats, leaving his son outside alone.

"They sort of expected something would have happened, I guess. They didn't expect shooting George. He's an innocent bystander," said Lynch.